Too Young
by BetterThanCoffee
Summary: From becoming the youngest airbending master, to accepting the knowledge that he was the avatar, Aang felt like the world was expecting him to grow up too fast. [Companion piece to 'The Ones Left Behind']


Floating in a pool of crisp, cool water, streaks of dried blood and ink spread out from the gangly limbs of twelve-year old Aang, reminiscent of veins winding their way beneath skin. Aang had done it. He was the youngest airbending master in history, and he now had the tattoos to prove it. In this situation, most would find themselves elated, perhaps even smug for achieving such an accomplishment, yet the boy just felt hollow. Every trail of blood that slid down his body as the arrows were painstakingly etched into his skin just further drained Aang of any emotion.

It was not as if Aang was not proud of his fortune. When Monk Gyatso first told Aang the news that the monks had granted Aang master status, along with a wink and a fruit pie, Aang immediately hopped on his air-scooter and swept away to tell his friends. In his mind, he imagined the other boys granting him with adulations. He was already planning the celebration party in his head, complete with his friends from the neighboring nations, yet when his scooter dissolved in front of the other young boys who were practicing near the air-ball field, he was faced with silence. Pale faces with downcast eyes slowly turned their backs on the young monk, until Jin, who was practically a brother to Aang as they were both raised under Gyatso's tutelage, whispered flatly, "Congrats, Aang," and walked away with the rest.

This was supposed to be the happiest day in an airbender's life. In their society, Aang was no longer a boy, but a man. The arrows, which so carefully traced down his body was a sign of maturity and wisdom. Even with the addition of the arrows, Aang still felt like the same, goofy kid. He would rather spend his free time playing pranks with Jin or exploring the world from the back of Appa than meditate with all of the elders. Aang was no longer accepted amongst the boys, and he felt too estranged from his older mentors. He was stuck in between two forces.

Air was supposed to go with the flow. Air was supposed to be adaptable. Air was an intangible force, so why did it feel like he was getting torn in two? Closing his eyes, Aang let himself sink into the pool swirling at the base of the temple. Airbenders typically prefer quick baths or rinsing off beneath the falls compared to a long soak, feeling out of place when not surrounded by their element. Ever since he was little, though, Aang always felt an affinity towards water. He did not shy from its depth, nor did he doubt the powerful and dangerous forces that water held. A dip in a lake was just as comforting as a cool breeze, or a warm fire, or the feeling of the dry ground beneath his bare feet. Despite all of that, Aang always gravitated towards air with his fellow monks, not wanting to alienate them with his strangeness.

Even with his careful planning, Aang found himself alone, and no longer had to censor himself from the carnal pleasures all the elements of the world could provide him. Just in that moment, he would cast aside his spiritual teachings, and be selfish. Just for this one moment, Aang would let himself feel guilty and jealous and spiteful. Soon, he would have to dry himself off and join his peers with a smile, but not right in this moment.

"I thought I would find you here."

Aang's eyes sprung open. Even through the water whooshing through his ears, he could hear the teasing tones from his mentor. Popping up out of the water, Aang shook his head to clear his senses. "Gyatso, what are you doing here?"

Monk Gyatso shook out his habit and sat himself on the shore. "Whenever you want to be alone, I know just to follow the water."

Aang had the decency to look sheepish before bringing a hand to rub at the back of his head. The stretch of his arms pulled at the fresh wounds. Aang flinched, getting a sharp reminder as to why he sought out solitude in the first place.

"You're the youngest airbender in the history of our temple, Aang."

"I know," murmured Aang.

"Yet you're not happy." Aang whipped his head around to stare at his mentor. Monk Gyatso did not stare at Aang in consternation, but rather empathy.

"I should be."

Gyatso smiled softly at his young ward. Aang was growing up so fast in front of his very eyes, and Gyatso knew that this boy had many more hardships to face in his future, but all he could see was the chubby little baby he first held in his arms twelve years ago. Monk Gyatso reached out a thin arm to pull Aang onto the shore to sit beside him.

"Human emotions are a strange thing, Aang. What others perhaps think we should feel is not always the case. One cannot tell the heart how to sing."

Aang raised an eyebrow at his mentor. Gyatso responded by sticking his tongue out at the boy.

"Aang," Gyatso spoke, "Don't feel like you need be a grown up just yet. Before you know it, your joints will ache like mine, and you will yearn for the days of your youth." With that, Gyatso blasted the boy with a giant gust of air, knocking him right back into the water with a giant splash.

"Gyatso," Aang replied warmly, "I don't think your youth has left you yet."

As Aang's tattoos healed, so did his mood. The other young monks at the temple eventually realized that even after gaining the mark of a master, Aang was still the same boy they knew. Soon, the boys were back to playing games and pranks. Monk Gyatso looked over these events with a sense of dread. The talk of war was rippling throughout the nations, and had reached the ears of the air nomads. How much longer would these children get to live in a world of serenity?

From high up on the temple's balustrade, Gyatso watched as Aang helped some of their youngest with their bending forms. Gyatso speculated what sort of father Aang would be if he was not bound by their nomadic lifestyle. He was so caught up in his own musings, that Gyatso failed to notice when Monk Tashi, one of the fellow monks on the Council of Elders, approached.

"Gyatso," Tashi spoke brusquely, "we need to talk."

Monk Gyatso turned to face Tashi, breaking his gaze from the children down below. Tashi was always quite proud of the long beard that stuck out from his chin, almost like an icicle hanging from a rooftop. It was rumored that Tashi would spend hours trimming and grooming his facial hair, giving in to the sins of vanity. It is with this that Gyatso was quite surprised to see Tashi's beard looking quite scruffy and unmanaged.

"Were the boys rifling through your room again, Tashi? If you smiled more, perhaps they would be more inclined to leave your belongings alone."

Tashi's bushy eyebrows twitched. It was common knowledge that Tashi was the recipient of many pranks over the years, known as the grumpiest monk in the whole temple. Aang had even been caught hiding lemur food underneath Tashi's pillow, hoping for an invasion of the little winged beasts.

"Don't deflect, Gyatso. It is unbecoming of a man of your age."

Gyatso let out a weary sigh, "He's too young; you know that."

"We don't have time to wait four more years," Tashi sneered. "Word has come from the Earth King that Sozin is planning something – something big, and it does not bode well for the Air Nomads."

"Can we not wait one more day?" Gyatso indicated towards the young monk in question, who was gaily playing without a care in the world. His tattoos had finally healed completely, and fit with the flow of his body so well, it was almost hard to imagine that only a few weeks earlier, his skin had been pure. "Must we be in such a haste to ruin his innocence and youth?"

"He is the avatar," whispered Tashi fiercely. "He has been reincarnated hundreds of times, and lived thousands of lives. He has started and ended wars – hardly the face of innocence."

"He is just a boy."

"A boy who is the only hope for our future, Gyatso." The monks faced each other down. It wasn't comfortable, for either of them, to try to come up with such big of decisions for one so young, but as the avatar, Aang did not have the luxury of being able to grow up as a normal boy.

Tashi finally broke their staring contest with a sigh, scrubbing down his face with a gnarled hand. "I don't like this any more than you do, Gyatso. Telling the boy now goes against any protocol or tradition. He might not even be able to grasp the severity of the situation at his age, but what choice do we have in the matter?"

Gyatso's eyes slid downwards the floor, knowing he had lost. He only hoped that the young boy would be able to handle this situation. He only hoped that Aang would not hate him for having to share this news so soon.

"I'll go retrieve him," Gyatso finally responded. Tashi clasped his shoulder firmly, before heading off to meet with the rest of the Council of Elders. Down below, Aang had started to teach his fellow monks the air scooter – the same technique that earned him his arrows. He looked so joyful to be spreading knowledge of his airbending. Gyatso did not want to break the moment. The elder thought back to his conversation with the monk on the waterside just a few weeks earlier, and prayed that this would not be the moment that Aang would reminisce as the end of his youth. He still had so much growing up to do. Gyatso swore to himself that he would set aside time for himself and the young monk to talk about these developments.

Unfortunately, Gyatso's promise to himself would prove to be a fate that would never come together. The other monks would pull Aang from his games of Pai Sho to accelerate his training. Gyatso would barely get a glimpse of the young avatar before he was being pulled away for some sort of exercise. Any free time that Aang came upon, he was found trailing after the other boys his own age, watching their games from afar, no longer invited to join.

Monk Gyatso missed the young boy, but not nearly as much as Aang missed his old life. Aang missed the time when he was just an ordinary airbender with no special skills or destiny. Why did he have to be so different? There was nothing unique about Aang. He wasn't the biggest, or the most attractive, or even the funniest monk. He was just a simple monk, who only wanted simple pleasures in life such as friendship and fruit pies.

Before he even knew it, Aang found himself back at the waterside, his own place of solitude. His reflection stared back at him. His childish round-cheeks seemed jarring next to the sharp points of the arrow sloping down his forehead. The arrow on his head seemed gargantuan, as if it was a beacon of light to highlight just how different he was. The arrow wasn't to mimic the flow of his chi paths, but rather, as a sign to mark the boy as strange.

If only he wasn't the avatar, then maybe Aang wouldn't have garnered ire from his peers. If only he wasn't the avatar, perhaps they would still want to play with him. Perhaps his airbending skills would not be as acute. While Aang loved being an airbender, and was accepting that he was quite talented in said field, he would still catch the jealous stares of boys whose skin held no trace of the blue ink.

It was those arrows' fault! Plunging his hands in the water, Aang started scrubbing at his arms. If only he could erase the arrows, then maybe, he could erase his reality. If the arrows could be scrubbed up, and flow away with the water, then so would all the responsibilities of being the avatar.

His skin turned red under his ministrations, and the blue of the arrows seemed to shine even more brightly around the raw skin. Gripping the back of his neck, Aang curled up into a tight ball. He felt as if he was ripping from the seams. Everyone expected so much from him. The Council and the other monks were looking for the avatar, but they had forgotten that Aang was just a kid! He was just a lost, twelve-year old boy. He couldn't be the avatar.

No, Aang decided. He _wouldn't_ be the avatar. No one could force him to do anything. How did they know for sure that he was the avatar, and that his toy choices were pure luck? Perhaps the monks were mistaken. As those thoughts swirling through Aang's mind, the pool of water in turn began to swirl around our avatar. There was only so much denial he could go through, and suddenly, Aang's strangeness made sense.

If he wasn't the avatar, why else would feel comfortable amongst all elements? From the icy tundra of the Water Nation tribes to the humidity of the Fire Nation, Aang had felt right at home. Even temperate Appa had opinions about a Fire Nation summer. Even before Aang had started traveling the world, the older monks would always be very lenient with him. Aang had always assumed it was because they just liked him, but what if that wasn't it at all? The Council of Elders did mention they were aware that he was the avatar since he was practically a baby. Was all they cared about was his title?

Gyatso never thought that, a small voice in his mind reminded him. Aang slowly unfurled from his ball, pondering over that thought. Gyatso treated Aang like a son. Even after it was revealed to him that he was the avatar, Gyatso stressed the importance of freedom and youth. Monk Gyatso wasn't priming him to be the ultimate savior; he just wanted Aang for Aang.

Aang needed to see Gyatso! He needed to look upon his wrinkled brow and feel his skinny arms wrapped around him. Aang needed to feel loved and wanted. He needed to know that the face of "Aang" wasn't just getting replaced with the expected image of the avatar. He needed to be reminded that it was okay to be a kid. He needed to be reminded that it was okay to be Aang.

If Aang had known before that this meeting would never happen, he would have tried to remember his last conversation with Gyatso with more clarity. He would have hugged him. Aang would have told Gyatso that he loves him. Instead, hidden among the flora above the Council of Elder's hall, he heard his last piece of sanity shatter. The monks were sending him away. The monks would not allow him to see Gyatso.

Aang packed his bags. He did not pay much attention to what he shoved in the sacks: a couple of changes of clothes and a map for his travels. Aang was careful to not include a single personal item. He would not bring any toys or books. His fingers briefly flittered over a portrait of Gyatso holding an infant Aang in his arms, but Aang was resolute. If he was to leave his life behind, he would need to forget about any material possessions that would tempt him to return. Maybe one day he would return and be the savior the Air Nomads were looking for, but right now, he was just a kid, and he would try to remain a kid for as long as he could.

"I'm sorry, Gyatso," Aang whispered as he placed a scroll to he mentor gently on his pillow. Aang had tried to remain strong for Gyatso, but right now, it was not possible. "I will return."

With those final words, Aang hopped on his glider and swooped out his window. He had planned for escaping the confines of being the avatar for a few months, at most, a year or two. Aang was aware that he could not ever fully evade his duty. He might not be ready yet, but one day, when he was older and no longer a child, perhaps he would be ready to take on the world.

As Aang flew over the air temple to the fields where the sky bison grazed, the picture of Gyatso's grey eyes, widened in shock as they read Aang's letter cemented into his mind. Selfishly, Aang was relieved that he would not have to ever see the hurt in Gyatso's face. Aang landed gracefully on Appa's back, and as they rose into the air, there was a pang in his chest. Bowing his head, Aang made the promise that he would return one day to see Gyatso's peaceful grey eyes, staring at Aang and full of warmth, once again.

Aang awoke up to see bright, blue eyes gazing down at him.


End file.
